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Is 5e's Success Actually Bad for Other Games?
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<blockquote data-quote="Urriak Uruk" data-source="post: 8302205" data-attributes="member: 7015558"><p>Yeah, we just disagree. There are billions of people on Earth, making billions of choices; inevitably, the same choices will be made again and again. So when people are firing birdshot again and again and again, so eventually somethings are going to reappear, even if entirely accidentally.</p><p></p><p>So I do think some sort of RPG game would emerge even if Gygax was never born, although I'll admit it might be very very different indeed.</p><p></p><p>After all, Chainmail was not made in a void; wargaming itself predated D&D, and Gygax ran with the concept from rules made by his friend Jeff Perren. Citing Wikipedia below;</p><p></p><p><em>In the late 1960s, fantasy elements were increasingly used in wargames. Linguist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._A._R._Barker" target="_blank">M. A. R. Barker</a> began to use wargame-like sessions to develop his creation <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9kumel" target="_blank">Tékumel</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games#cite_note-rpgoverview-7" target="_blank">[7]</a> In 1970, the New England Wargamers Association demonstrated a fantasy wargame called Middle Earth at a convention of the Military Figure Collectors Association.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games#cite_note-newa-13" target="_blank">[13]</a> Fantasy writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Stafford" target="_blank">Greg Stafford</a> created the board wargame <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Bear_and_Red_Moon" target="_blank">White Bear and Red Moon</a> to explore conflicts in his fantasy world <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorantha" target="_blank">Glorantha</a>, though it did not see publication until 1974.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" target="_blank">citation needed</a>] A wargame session was held at the University of Minnesota in 1969, with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Wesely" target="_blank">Dave Wesely</a> as the moderator, in which the players represented single characters in a Napoleonic scenario centering on a small town named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunstein_(wargame)" target="_blank">Braunstein</a>. This did not lead to any further experimentation in the same vein immediately, but the ground had been laid. It actually bore greater resemblance to later <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LARP" target="_blank">LARP</a> games than what would conventionally be thought of as a role-playing game. Wesely would, later in the year, run a second "Braunstein," placing the players in the roles of government officials and revolutionaries in a fictional <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic" target="_blank">banana republic</a>.</em></p><p></p><p>And roleplaying games (mostly focused on reenactments of history instead of fantasy) itself predate D&D by centuries. But anyway, I don't disagree that without Gygax the gaming landscape would probably look very different, so I'll drop it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Urriak Uruk, post: 8302205, member: 7015558"] Yeah, we just disagree. There are billions of people on Earth, making billions of choices; inevitably, the same choices will be made again and again. So when people are firing birdshot again and again and again, so eventually somethings are going to reappear, even if entirely accidentally. So I do think some sort of RPG game would emerge even if Gygax was never born, although I'll admit it might be very very different indeed. After all, Chainmail was not made in a void; wargaming itself predated D&D, and Gygax ran with the concept from rules made by his friend Jeff Perren. Citing Wikipedia below; [I]In the late 1960s, fantasy elements were increasingly used in wargames. Linguist [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._A._R._Barker']M. A. R. Barker[/URL] began to use wargame-like sessions to develop his creation [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A9kumel']Tékumel[/URL].[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games#cite_note-rpgoverview-7'][7][/URL] In 1970, the New England Wargamers Association demonstrated a fantasy wargame called Middle Earth at a convention of the Military Figure Collectors Association.[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games#cite_note-newa-13'][13][/URL] Fantasy writer [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Stafford']Greg Stafford[/URL] created the board wargame [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Bear_and_Red_Moon']White Bear and Red Moon[/URL] to explore conflicts in his fantasy world [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorantha']Glorantha[/URL], though it did not see publication until 1974.[[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed']citation needed[/URL]] A wargame session was held at the University of Minnesota in 1969, with [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Wesely']Dave Wesely[/URL] as the moderator, in which the players represented single characters in a Napoleonic scenario centering on a small town named [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunstein_(wargame)']Braunstein[/URL]. This did not lead to any further experimentation in the same vein immediately, but the ground had been laid. It actually bore greater resemblance to later [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LARP']LARP[/URL] games than what would conventionally be thought of as a role-playing game. Wesely would, later in the year, run a second "Braunstein," placing the players in the roles of government officials and revolutionaries in a fictional [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic']banana republic[/URL].[/I] And roleplaying games (mostly focused on reenactments of history instead of fantasy) itself predate D&D by centuries. But anyway, I don't disagree that without Gygax the gaming landscape would probably look very different, so I'll drop it. [/QUOTE]
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